Trinity Western University is a Christian-based university in Langley, B.C.It has stirred a storm of controversy with its proposal to launch a law school.Why? Because its faculty, staff and students have to sign a contract agreeing not to have sex except if they are in a heterosexual marriage.Sounds discriminatory? Absolutely. Straight people can have sex, as long as they are married; queers cannot have sex, even if they are married.Queers are not the only target. Prospective students must also agree to respect life "from conception to death"; not drink, do drugs, or smoke cigarettes on campus; and to chose only entertainment which is in accordance with biblical priorities.Leaving aside for a moment the interesting question of how TWU would enforce such rules, the question is: Can they do that??? In a law school???The answer, so far, is yes.The Federation of Law Societies, the national certification body, has approved the TWU application to host a law school despite its discrimination against queers.The school relies on freedom of religion as a defence.Some people think that no one should ever be allowed to rely on 'freedom of religion'. In Quebec, the bill currently before the provincial legislature goes further and says that people in public service cannot wear religious items. I vigorously disagree with the Quebec approach, which I think is code for discriminating against (in particular) Muslim women. But I equally vigorously disagree that an educational institution which is teaching prospective lawyers about the rule of law, including the constitutional requirement of freedom from discrimination, should be able to discriminate against students who want to study there.The Globe and Mail also disagrees. Read their editorial on the subject.The fight is not over. Despite the approval by the Federation of Law Societies, several province's law societies are considering how to deal with the issue, B.C. among them.

An ingenious new study shows that if lesbians, gay men and bisexual people live in homophobic communities their health suffers and their life is shortened, compared to lesbians and gay men who live in accepting communities. Using national U.S. data about attitudes to homosexuality, Mark Hatzenbuehler, lead author of the study, developed community profiles of homophobia. Then they compared rates of suicide, homicide, and death from other causes by community, with data from 1998 to 2008.

Hatzenbuehler explained that the authors were able to examine whether mortality risk differed for LGB individuals who lived in communities that were characterized by high versus low levels of prejudice. By the end of the study, 92% of LGB respondents living in low-prejudice communities were still alive; in contrast, only 78% of the LGB respondents living in high-prejudice communities were still alive.The authors also found that suicide, homicide/violence, and cardiovascular diseases were all substantially elevated among sexual minorities in high-prejudice communities. LGB respondents living in high-prejudice communities died of suicide on average at age 37.5, compared to age 55.7 for those living in low-prejudice communities, a striking 18-year difference. Homicide and violence-related deaths are one of the most direct links between hostile community attitudes and death, and results indicated that homicide rates were over three times more likely to occur in high-prejudice communities than in low-prejudice communities.Of the deaths in high-prejudice communities, 25% were due to cardiovascular disease, compared to 18.6% of deaths in the low-prejudice communities. "Psychosocial stressors are strongly linked to cardiovascular risk, and this kind of stress may represent an indirect pathway through which prejudice contributes to mortality. Discrimination, prejudice, and social marginalization create several unique demands on stigmatized individuals that are stress-inducing," said Dr. Hatzenbuehler.

Change is speeding up in the U.S.Same sex marriage is now legal in 17 states and the District of Washington. SEVENTEEN STATES!The homophobic opposition is now trying a new strategy, of legislating protection for anyone who, on the basis of their religion, discriminates against queers. Freedom of religion trumping the right to equality and freedom from discrimination.But this week, lawmakers in Idaho, Kansas, South Dakota and Tennessee either voted down, blocked, or backtracked those legalizing-discrimination laws in their states. Canada is wrestling with this problem in the form of approval for a law school at Trinity Western University. TWU requires its faculty staff and students to sign a pledge which, among other things, requires students to refrain from sex except in a (you guessed it) heterosexual marriage, effectively making homophobia a foundational principal of the law school. The question is whether such a law school should be entitled to operate.

Great news!Jim Andre, the Alberta school trustee newly-elected to the Camrose School Board, has resigned over the publication of his months of racist, sexist, homophobic tweets. Thanks to Kris Wells for weighing in on this and for passing on the success story!

Last week Jim Andre, a recently-elected school board trustee for the school district of Camrose AB, was outed on CTV as the author of a series of about 60 tweets which were explicitly racist, sexist and/or homophobic.There has been a firestorm in the wake of the disclosure.Andre says he won't resign unless the school board votes to ask him. The school board meets this week. The whole story here.

A lesbian couple in France has been forced by the court to recognize the "rights" of the man who donated sperm to conceive the child - even though he had signed a donor insemination agreement waiving all parental rights.As a result the donor dad now has visiting rights with "his" child.France has been slow to recognize the rights of lesbian and gay couples. For example it is not legal for two gay men or two lesbians to adopt a child.In B.C., the question of whether a 'donor dad' has any rights has been answered by the legislature. As of March 18 2003, a donor is NEVER a parent on the basis of his donation of sperm (or her donation of eggs, as the case may be).So a donor cannot claim time with a child; and is not liable to pay child support.

The Supreme Court of Canada today issued an important decision about hate speech directed at queers.

The background to the case concerned four documents: two flyers, one called "Keep Homosexuality out of Saskatoon's Public Schools!" and "Sodomites in our Public Schools"; and two flyers which were the reprint of a classifed ad with handwritten comments added.

Under the Saskatchewan Human Rights code, it is illegal to circulate publications which "expose a person to hatred and ridicule" on a protected ground - here, sexual orientation.

So the big question for the court was: where does prohibited hate speech end, and where does freedom of speech begin?

The Supreme Court of Canada analyzed what a publication must be like in order to contravene the hate speech provisions. It said that there must be three main elements. First, the person judging whether the publication contains hate speech must do so from an 'objective' point of view, asking themselves whether a 'reasonable person, aware of the context and circumstances, would view the expression as exposing the protected group to hatred'. (In other words, you cannot only ask queers what they think about that question). Second, it is only hateful and contrary to the protections in Saskatchewan's human rights legislation if it is really hateful...in the sense captured by the words 'detestation' and 'vilification'. It's not hate speech just because it is repugnant or offensive. And finally, the decision maker must look to see what the effect of the hate speech is: is the probably effect that it will expose the targeted person or group to hatred by others?

The complainants had argued that the section of the human rights law under which they had been convicted was a breach of their constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech. True, said the Supreme Court of Canada: but, your right to freedom of speech has to be balanced against the right to be free from speech which is likely to cause hatred; and in this case, most of the human rights law is appropriate and impairs one's freedom of speech minimally.

Part of the Saskatchewan human rights legislation outlawed speech which "ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of" a person. That part of the law, said the Supreme Court of Canada, is too broad. And they struck it down.This case has been long-awaited. Queers have been holding our breath to see whether the Supreme Court of Canada would uphold our right to be free from malicious homophobic speech, or whether once again our rights would be seen as subordinate to someone else's rights to free speech, or freedom of religion.

I highly recommend this article in the Huffington Post about the deeply shocking developments in Uganda, which is legislating homophobia in the most vicious terms:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ruth-messinger/standing-in-solidarity-wi_1_b_2220652.html